Bidding for work on major 45-ha brownfield site open to SME’s Posted on: January 16th, 2019 York Central is to open up bidding for work on the vast 45-ha site to SME contractors, a member of their development team has announced. Speaking at our conference in York Tamsin Hart-Jones said that the scheme, which is set to transform one of the UK’s largest brownfield regeneration sites, will create ‘a range of opportunities’ for smaller firms to engage with the partnership, which is made up of majority landowners Homes England, Network Rail, the Railway Museum and City of York Council. Hart-Jones said: “There will be smaller plots for 50-units but we will also look at different types of homes and different types of construction. We’re particularly looking at custom build and to try different products which may be attractive to smaller builders as well as creating smaller parcels for them as well.” 20-ha of the 45-ha development zone will be available for construction of new schemes, with up to 2,500 homes and 112,000 m² of commercial space allocated along with an expansion of the railway museum. [emaillocker id=”71749″] The commitment to SME contractors comes as York City Council are set to approve plans to release the first tranche of funding for the York Central scheme on Thursday (17th January) where they’ll agree Heads of Terms for the York Central Partnership legal agreement. They’re set to commit £1.25m of the £155m York Central capital budget to pre-construction site preparations including telecommunications and rail line relocation. Other funding includes £5m committed subject to planning and external funding awards. Network Rail has already spent £4.4m on land assembly and rail clearance, and Home England has also committed £18.9m towards land assembly for the project. Hamer Boot, Regional Director at Henry Boot Developments, added that the developer planned to also procure work from SME contractors at the firm’s ongoing Chocolate Works project. Henry Boot is currently building out the 14-acre former Terry’s Chocolate Factory in a JV with PJ Livesey. Boot said: “At the Chocolate Works there is a range and size of units, some for the big players and for some there will be scope for small contractors. Although we do have a sister construction company we do tend to market tender as well because we do so many joint ventures and we wish to bring value to our partners.” [/emaillocker]
